London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd
| London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd | |
|---|---|
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Citation(s) | [1993] 4 All ER 157, [1994] 1 WLR 31 |
| Keywords | |
| Easements, car parking | |
London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd [1993] 4 All ER 157 is an English land law case, concerning easements. It defines the extent to which parking a car on land could amount to an easement.
Facts
Leicestershire Coop sold part of its land to London & Blenheim, with the right to park cars on the land retained by the Coop. The agreement included a provision that if L&B were to acquire more land, it should tell the Coop in advance in order to get similar parking rights. Then, the Coop sold its land to Ladbroke. L&B wished to serve notice for more parking rights for new land it had acquired.
Judgment
High Court
Judge Paul Baker QC held the following.[1]
| “ | The essential question is one of degree. If the right granted in relation to the area over which it is to be exercisable is such that it would leave the servient owner without any reasonable use of his land, whether for parking or anything else, it could not be an easement though it might be some larger or different grant. | ” |
Court of Appeal
Peter Gibson LJ held that L&B could not claim a car parking right for additional land, because the alleged dominant tenement was not adequately identified. The reason why there must be a dominant tenement before there can be a grant is because certainty is of prime importance, as said in Ashburn Anstalt v Arnold.[2]
| “ | A right intended as an easement and attached to a servient tenement before the dominant tenement is identified would in my view be an incident of a novel kind. | ” |